Sven Nys (Landbouwkrediet) beat all his main rivals in a muddy edition of the GP Sven Nys, in his hometown Baal. In his new light-green kit Nys ploughed away from his last rival Klaas Vantornout (Sunweb-Revor) in the second of seven laps and he completed a long solo ride in front of his home crowd. It was Nys’ eleventh win in his home race.

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“For an entire hour I had goose bumps. It’s been a few years since I dominated like this but I came out of the Christmas week very well and the whole town was standing behind me, united as one,” Nys said on tv-channel Sporza.

After taking it easy in the final laps Nys had a 45 second gap on a well-performing Kevin Pauwels (Sunweb-Revor). The latter extended his lead over world champion Zdenek Stybar (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) in the Gazet van Antwerpen Trophy during this sixth round on New Year’s Day.

“I didn’t expect to finish ahead of Stybar on a course like this,” Pauwels said. Bart Wellens (Telenet-Fidea) was the surprising name on the podium since top guns Niels Albert (BKCP-Powerplus) and Stybar performed below par in Baal. The latter showed up in Baal with a new pink bike from Specialized, a pink helmet and the new team kit from Omega Pharma-Quickstep. Stybar had a super-fast start, then dropped back into eighth position halfway in race but the Czech fought back to finish fourth on the line.

“Maybe I started too fast but I was motivated to show off my new shirt and bike. Then I lost a lot of ground in two laps,” Stybar said.

The battle for second place was the most interesting to watch. Vantornout, Pauwels, Wellens and Albert rode together in the first chase group until the fifth lap. Then Albert cracked, Wellens punctured out of the group and during the penultimate lap Vantornout lost ground too. The tall Belgian struggled while running and he was passed by Wellens.

“Before that I flatted but tried to follow Pauwels and Vantornout which cost a lot of energy; I shouldn’t have done that,” Wellens said.

“Suddenly I saw Vantornout standing there and I realized that everybody can run into problems.”

Stybar profited from Albert and Vantornout during their difficult last laps and he blasted past them. “In the end I started going better and suddenly I realized that fourth place was still an option so I went full gas for that,” Stybar said.

One by one the mud-clad riders rolled towards the finish line. Rob Peeters (Telenet-Fidea) was fifth ahead of Albert, Sven Vanthourenhout (Landbouwkrediet), Bart Aernouts (Rabobank-Giant Off-Road Team). Vantornout eventually came home in a disappointing ninth place. Jonathan Page (Planetbike) showed off his best performance of the season. By sprinting ahead of Martin Zlamalik (KDL-Trans) at the finish he completed the top-10 in Baal. In one week he claimed his second top-10 result in a C1-race this season and his first top-10 in a race that is part of one of the major series.